


i need you now (i'm screamin' out)

by connorswhisk



Series: losers/lovers [4]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Racism, even tho its quiet pining stanlon, i Love mike hanlon ok so this was so fun to write, i really mined the different canons for parts and then mashed it all together sljfkd;f, i tagged this as stanlon, that will forever be unresolved rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 14:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connorswhisk/pseuds/connorswhisk
Summary: ~~From a young age, Mike Hanlon learns to understand far more about the world than he should for his time. Derry isn’t a Southern town (far from it), but it is a small one. And small towns can range from quaint and charming to hideous and suffocating.Derry is, unfortunately, one of those latter towns.~~





	i need you now (i'm screamin' out)

**Author's Note:**

> believe it or not, mike hanlon is gay. elaborate on that. no.
> 
> title taken from missing you by chosen jacobs

From a young age, Mike Hanlon learns to understand far more about the world than he should for his time. Derry isn’t a Southern town (far from it), but it _is _a small one. And small towns can range from quaint and charming to hideous and suffocating.

Derry is, unfortunately, one of those latter towns.

And Mike only really starts to see this once he’s about five years old. He’s walking down the street with his mother, hand in hand, going to drop off some meats with Mr. Judd at the butcher’s. The Hanlons don’t come into town often, unless it’s on farm-related business. There’s no other reason for them to, not really. Mike normally wouldn’t have come in with Mom, but Daddy’s visiting an old friend in Florida, and with no one left at home to watch him, Mike has to tag along.

They’ve almost made it to the butcher shop, they’ve just finished crossing the road, when it happens.

“Hey, sweetheart!” a man calls, a man in a blue police uniform leaning against a cop car. Mike’s mother pulls him closer and starts to walk faster.

“Don’t pay him any mind, Mike,” she says, adjusting the paper bag under her arm. “Just keep walking.”

But Mike gapes at the man, because he’s never seen a real life police officer up close before, and cops are supposed to be the good guys, right? This man must be a good guy.

(Jesus. How naive Mike used to be.)

“What’re you lookin’ at, Baa Baa Black Sheep?” the cop asks, grinning toothily.

“_Michael,_” Mom hisses. “_Don’t stare._”

“Aw, it’s ok, doll,” the cop says, getting closer, and Mike has only just mastered reading, but he can understand the letters on the officer’s badge as plain as day: BOWERS.

“Where’s your husband?” Officer Bowers asks. “Usually he’s the one to make these silly fried-chicken runs, not you.” He turns his head and spits on the ground.

Mom straightens her back. “He’s paying a visit to a friend. I’m taking the meats to Mr. Judd, just like Will would normally.”

Bowers smiles. “Oh, so instead of Jim Crow, we get his whore wife and his shitstain of a kid. Will the filth _ever _clear out of this town?”

Mom’s jaw tightens. “Butch Bowers, I’d thank you very kindly not to swear in front of my child. And not to call me that name. As for clearing out of town, we won’t be doing that. We live here, and we have the right to walk the streets of Derry just as much as you do. Sorry if that upsets you. In fact, it’s a wonder what I’m saying is able to pass through that lump of meat you call a brain at all.”

The officer sneers. “_Shut your face,_” he says, and then he calls Mom a name which Mike learns to become very familiar with as he gets older.

“How _dare _you?” Mom asks simply, and then she turns on her heel and pulls Mike after her to finish their errand.

That is Mike’s first altercation with Derry as he comes to know it, and it is certainly not his last. Mike’s dad says that Derry is a cursed town. That when he’d come here with Mike’s mother, they hadn’t realized how bad it truly was. They’d just thought it was a cute little pocket of Maine, a place to settle down, start a business, start a family.

They hadn’t realized, at the time, just how _diseased_ the place could be.

“You’d better leave here when you’re older, Mikey,” Daddy says, a firm hand on Mike’s shoulder. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out.”

“But why, Daddy? Shouldn’t I stay here and look after the farm?” Mike asks, confused.

Daddy sighs. “Listen to me, Mike. I know the farm is important. But once you’re old enough to get out of here and go to college? _Do it. _Your mother and I can take care of the farm. You deserve to get out of here, son. You really do.” And he gives Mike a pained look that almost makes Mike want to cry.

Mike’s parents don’t let him go to school. They say it isn’t safe. That while this isn’t the fifties, Derry still hasn’t caught on with the rest of the world yet. That Mike would be better off learning at home.

Mike doesn’t understand _why._

“People like Butch Bowers are all over this town, Mike,” Mom says, jaw set. “Even if they don’t show it, they’re here, and they won’t be afraid to start a new Black Spot Fire. Stay away from the Bowers family, Michael. They’re bad people, and I don’t want you to interact with them. I’m serious. Stay away.”

Although he doesn’t know why Officer Bowers doesn’t like him, or what the Black Spot Fire is, Mike agrees.

“Ok, Mom, I will,” he says.

Unfortunately, it’s a lie. Mike looks back and wishes it didn’t have to be.

Mike doesn’t go to school.

Mike doesn’t go to school, but he does _learn. _His parents teach him all they can at home, your basic math, science, grammar. But Mike goes beyond his studies, and throws himself into history.

Even at seven years old, it fascinates him. Mike becomes immersed in every history book they have at home, and when he finishes those, he moves on to the stuff he can get at the public library, the real stuff. He checks out tons of books, even the ones he doesn’t really understand, because for some reason the idea of learning people’s origins just _calls _to him.

But to go to the library, Mike has to go into town. And Mike isn’t a big fan of going into town.

“Hey! Hanlon!” Mike is ten, and Henry Bowers is twelve, and he takes after his father in too many ways. He’s tall, menacing, mean, the whole package, and he’s currently accosting Mike outside of the Derry Public Library.

“What do you want, Henry?” Mike asks, almost pleasantly. He knows he shouldn’t talk back to him, his parents are always saying to just keep quiet and it’ll stop, but Mike also can’t help himself. Of course, he’s taking the nice approach today, since he showed up here to ask Mrs. Starrett if the new set of books on the French and Indian War has come in yet. He really just wants to pop in and out.

Of course, it can’t be that easy. Nothing ever is.

“I want,” Henry sneers, leering menacingly. “For you to get the _fuck _out of my town.” Belch Huggins, Victor Criss, and Patrick Hockstetter jeer from behind him.

“No, Henry,” Mike says, and he knows he’s making a mistake but it’s just too _easy _to get Bowers riled up like this. “I think _you _should get out. Derry would be a much nicer place without you and your crazy father.”

Bowers’s lips curl into a tight snarl. “You better watch your mouth, you little piece of - “

“Mr. Bowers,” Mrs. Starrett says, descending the library steps, Mike’s knight in shining armor. “If you’re not going to check out a book, I suggest you and your friends leave, and stop making trouble with my patrons.”

Bowers steps down, because even he knows not to pick a fight in front of an adult. “Fine,” he spits. “Whatever. Screw your dusty old books, anyway.” And he walks off, high-fiving Belch as he does.

“_That boy,_” Mrs. Starrett hisses, and then she turns to Mike. “Sorry you had to deal with that, Michael. People can be so old-fashioned. Anyway, I assume you’re here for the new set?”

Mike nods.

“Well, you’re in luck because they’ve just arrived. They’re in the back, I’ll go get them. You stay in the reading room.”

Mike follows Mrs. Starrett inside, and hangs back while she goes into the storage room. He’s always liked the library, with its poster-plastered walls and musty smell of books. It’s quiet, and calming.

“You sh-shouldn’t let B-Bowers push you around like that,” a voice says. Mike turns to see a boy his age, sitting in one of the plush chairs and reading a magazine.

“What?” Mike asks.

The boy smiles, and the smile is genuine. “Bowers is just a b-bully. You’re better than him, trust m-m-me.”

“Thanks,” Mike mutters, unsure of what else to say. People aren’t usually this nice to him, unless they’re Mrs. Starrett or Mr. Judd at the butcher shop.

“I’m Bill D-Denbrough,” the boy says, extending a hand. “You’re M-M-Mike Hanlon, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, shaking Bill’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Bill.”

“You too.”

Mike feels that this is some sort of moment. Like something big, something important in his life has just taken place, and he has no idea that it has. Bill Denbrough smiles at him, and he smiles right back at Bill Denbrough. And he feels safe. Stronger, almost.

And then the moment is gone, as Mrs. Starrett slams down the new set of history books onto the desk in front of Mike.

Mike and Bill don’t talk for a long time after that.

Mike had wanted Bill Denbrough to be his _friend. _But whenever he sees Bill in town after the day at the library, he’s always with his other friends. Mike doesn’t want to impose, doesn’t want to disrupt their group dynamic. So he waves to Bill when he sees him, and Bill waves back, but other than that, not much happens.

Mike doesn’t have many friends. He’s usually really busy, working on the farm or in school, so he doesn’t have a lot of time to himself. When he does, he usually just rides his bike around town on his own. He thinks about tracking down Bill and his friends, to see if they want to hang out. But Mike knows that they’re already bullied at school, and Mike would only make things worse.

So instead Mike stays relatively alone. He plays with Timothy and Jackson from down the road sometimes, or maybe Randy, who lives a little farther away, but Mike isn’t sure if he really fits in with them.

He’s not lonely. He’s just...waiting.

And then for his eleventh birthday, Mike’s parents get him a dog. A tiny golden lab puppy with a bow around his neck, who yips happily and jumps up to lick Mike’s face. Mike loves him instantly.

He names the dog Mr. Chips.

Mike takes Mr. Chips everywhere he goes. Mr. Chips is a good dog, obedient, but sweet, and he always attracts a lot of attention. People think he’s cute. Once, two of Bill’s friends had been coming out of the arcade while Mike was walking his bike back from the butcher’s, and they had caught sight of the dog and asked to pet him. Mike doesn’t know their names (one has glasses and one has a fanny pack), but Mr. Chips had seemed to like them (to be fair, Mr. Chips likes almost everyone), so they must be cool.

And sometimes those boys wave to him, too.

There is another boy in that group. A boy with clean clothes and curly hair. Mike wants to get to know him. He supposes he wants to know all of them, but something about this boy seems to _call _to him. He isn’t sure what it is.

The boy is Jewish. Mike knows that because he once saw him walking out of the synagogue. He seems quiet, and careful. He doesn’t smile a lot.

Mike wants to meet him.

But whenever he sees the curly-haired boy, it’s never the right time to introduce himself.

Mike is pedaling by Bassey Park one day, when he sees that the curly-haired boy is sitting attentively on a bench, back straight, a pair of binoculars raised to his face, tracking a robin flying up above and jotting notes down in a journal.

Mike doesn’t talk to him. But he starts to call him “Bird Boy” affectionately in his head.

Bird Boy is a question. He’s a mystery, different than the facts Mike reads in his books, and Mike wants to know more about him. He finds himself thinking about Bird Boy at random times, when he’s feeding Mr. Chips, when he’s doing his chores, and he doesn’t understand why.

But Mike doesn’t understand a lot of things.

Like, who would kill an innocent dog?

Because that’s what happens. Mike goes out to the yard to feed Mr. Chips one morning (they don’t usually keep him tied up, but Mr. Chips had rolled around in the dirt after dinner and there wasn’t time to wash him) and finds him stone dead on the ground, foaming from the mouth.

Mike screams.

A couple of hours later, his father comes to visit him in his bedroom.

“Mike,” he says grimly. “I’m sorry about Mr. Chips.”

“He was a _good_ dog,” Mike cries. “Why would anyone want to hurt him?”

Daddy’s face turns stony. “Michael, there are a lot of people who don’t like us because of the color of our skin. You know that. And I think whoever poisoned your dog didn’t do it accidentally. It was rat poison, son. They did it on purpose, to hurt you.”

A fresh wave of tears comes on. “But who?” Mike asks. He feels like he already knows the answer.

“I think it was Butch Bowers,” Daddy says lowly. “Or his good-for-nothing son. And I intend to prove it.”

But he doesn’t prove it. Even though the underside of Henry’s bed is littered with empty boxes of rat poison, even though the tracks in the mud near where Mr. Chips had been tied up fit Henry’s boots, the police don’t do anything. They say there “isn’t enough evidence.”

Mike’s father comes home in a rage. Mike cries himself to sleep, listening to his father swear and his mother calm him down with soothing tones.

They bury Mr. Chips under an apple tree. Mike had sat under that tree and read, and Mr. Chips had lain his head on Mike’s lap and wagged his tail happily.

But Mr. Chips isn’t going to do that anymore.

For the first time in his life, Mike starts to understand what his dad means when he says that Derry is cursed.

At thirteen, Mike is a lot more mature than he should be for his age.

He can’t help it. He’s been pushed around his whole life, by neighbors, by people in town, by strangers. He’s heard things come out of people’s mouths that no kid his age should have to hear.

He’s old in spirit, young in years.

He hates it.

Mike often finds himself waking in the middle of the night. Sitting up in bed, expecting a comforting lick from Mr. Chips, even though Mr. Chips has not slept in his bed for almost three years. He feels like it’s _his_ fault that his dog is dead. _Mike_ didn’t bathe him that night, _Mike_ left him tied up outside. If Mr. Chips had stayed in, he wouldn’t have been poisoned.

Mike tries not to think about it.

The thing is, he’s apprehensive. He can _feel _something coming, something big, but what, he doesn’t know. He just knows it’s coming soon.

Things start to happen in January.

It’s cold, cold and wet. Mike hates biking into town during this part of the year, because his lips always get all chapped and his socks get soaked. But work is work, and he’s got to do it.

Main Street is mostly deserted. It’s freezing, and damp, and people just want to stay indoors. Mike wishes that’s where he could be.

On the way in, he passes a storm drain. A mixture of melted snow and mud is flowing into its mouth, creating a sort of _sludge _that oozes into the drain’s maw. A boy was killed in a storm drain, or near one. It had been at the end of last year, recently. Georgie Denbrough, Bill’s younger brother.

Mike has since scarcely seen Bill in town. He doesn’t think he gets out much anymore.

The storm drain gurgles. It’s black inside, so black Mike can’t see very far in.

He’s not sure if he wants to.

A sudden shout snaps Mike out of his musings. He looks up to see Henry Bowers and his gang, near the entrance to Bassey Park, shoving a boy to the ground and starting to kick at his writhing body, laughing and whooping as they do.

No one is doing anything about it. There’s an old man sitting on a bench roughly twenty feet away from them, and he isn’t doing anything about it. He’s just _sitting there._

Mike drops his bicycle to the pavement without a second thought.

He has the advantage here, because Bowers has his back to Mike. Mike could march right up to him, tap him on the shoulder, and ask him, _politely, _to cut it the fuck out.

The boy on the ground sits up, his fuzzy hat having been knocked off his head, and Mike sees a familiar head of curls and realizes, with a jolt, that it’s Bird Boy.

Bird Boy’s never wanted to hurt anyone. He just rides his bike, and sits in the park with his binoculars. That’s probably what he was trying to do today, when Bowers and his friends decided to pay him a visit. They had no _reason_.

Mike sees red.

He storms up to Bowers, grabs his shoulder roughly, spins him around, and before anyone can react, _slams _Henry right in the center of the face.

There’s a crack like a baseball being hit, and Bowers brings his hand up to his face, his expression a mixture of pain mingled with shock.

“_WHAT THE FUCK?” _Bowers screams, tears streaming down his face as blood gushes from his nose, pouring out from between his fingers. “_YOU BROKE MY GODDAMN NOSE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”_

Mike isn’t sure why he just did that. His body is hot, his heart is pounding, he’s breathing heavily, and he has no idea _why _he just socked Henry Bowers right between the eyes, but he _did_, and while there’ll be hell to pay, he’s glad he did it. It’s invigorating to see Henry knocked down a peg.

“Yeah?” Mike asks, because he’s on a roll, and he’s already going to get his ass kicked, so why stop now? “What are you gonna do about it, Bowers?”

Bowers makes a noise from the back of his throat that can only be described as a howl of pure fury. _“I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS, HANLON, I SWEAR TO GOD!” _The others are too stunned to react, but the old man is finally paying attention, and people are starting to peep from out of shop windows.

“Fucking DO IT, then!” Mike yells, and Bowers screams.

“_FUCKING MOVE, KILL HIS ASS, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”_

And suddenly the other three snap back to attention, because they’ve been given direct orders from their leader, now. Mike can see Patrick Hockstetter licking his lips, and that’s the last visual he gets before Belch throws the first punch.

Mike is too slow, and Belch hits _hard, _and the punch catches him right in the stomach. Mike groans and staggers, but he’s strong from working on the farm all these years. He stays on his feet. And even if he were the shrimpiest guy alive, he thinks he could keep standing. Something inside of him has been awakened, lighting his nerve-endings on fire, and Mike doesn’t want it to stop.

He lashes out at Victor Criss, clocks him on the side of the head. Criss growls and snaps his head back, lands a hit on Mike’s right eye, and then Hockstetter takes a running start, looking to run Mike down, getting closer and closer, like some sort of psychotic bull, and Mike’s not fast enough to escape, he’s going to get hit, and _then_ -

Mike is being wrenched to the side. Hockstetter keeps going, the momentum too strong, trips over his own feet, and barrels headfirst into a snowdrift. Mike laughs in spite of himself. So does his savior. Mike turns to look at him.

It’s Bird Boy. Mike’s never heard him laugh before. He decides he likes it.

Hockstetter picks himself up, but before he can do anything, a police siren sounds from down the street.

Henry Bowers turns paler than the snow he’s standing in, blood still spurting from out of his hands.

“_HENRY,” _Butch Bowers bellows from the window of his cruiser. _“PICKIN’ FIGHTS? YOU LITTLE CUNT GET IN HERE.”_

Bowers stands completely still.

_“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, BOY? GET IN THE FUCKIN’ CAR.”_

Henry goes, and Mike knows he’s going to get the beating of his lifetime. Once he shuts the door, his father cuffs him on the side of the head, and Henry’s yelp is audible, even from here.

Officer Bowers peels out and drives away.

Mike can’t help himself. _“_That was for Mr. Chips, you asshole!” he yells.

Criss, Hockstetter, and Huggins sneer at him, and then walk away, not before spitting at his shoes. Clearly they want to make it seem like they don’t care, but Mike had seen the fear in their eyes.

They’re afraid of Butch Bowers, too. Who wouldn’t be?

A gloved hand is grabbing hold of Mike’s, pulling him to a bench. “Hey, are you ok?” a gentle voice asks.

Bird Boy.

Mike’s heart is still racing. Probably just from adrenaline.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” Mike says, looking at the other boy. “My mom will have a cow when she sees my eye, though.”

Bird Boy’s eyebrows knit together, and Mike realizes he’s concerned. “Does it sting? It’ll bruise.”

“Yeah, it stings,” Mike says. Bird Boy bends down and scoops up some snow, then holds it to Mike’s face, over his right eye. Mike can feel himself blushing.

“Your lip,” he gets out. Bird Boy frowns, and rubs his other hand over his bottom lip. It comes away bloody.

“Oh, fuck,” he curses. “It’s not on my coat is it?”

Mike shakes his head.

“Good.”

“Maybe you should put snow on that, too,” Mike says.

“Yeah, but your eye is worse. I’ll take care of it first,” Bird Boy answers softly, and Mike’s breathing stutters. What is going on?

“I’ve seen you around,” Mike blurts. “Around town, I mean. You hang out with Bill Denbrough, and those other two boys.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bird Boy says. “That’s Richie and Eddie. And you’re Mike, right? Mike Hanlon?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“It should be ok, now,” Bird Boy says, taking his hand away, which is good, ‘cause Mike’s face had been so hot he was scared the snow would melt right off it. “Just ice it when you get home.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Mike says.

Bird Boy stands. “Well, thanks for saving me back there. I don’t know what I’d be doing if you hadn’t come along.”

“No,” Mike says back. “Thank _you. _I would’ve gotten plowed by Hockstetter if you hadn’t pulled me out of the way.”

Bird Boy giggles, and it sounds like bells. “I guess that’s true. We saved each other.”

Mike smiles, and Bird Boy smiles back.

“What were they bothering you about, though?” Mike asks before he can stop himself. Bird Boy sets his jaw and looks down at his feet.

“They...They were calling me a Christ-killer,” he says. “Saying I deserved to burn like all the Jews in the camps.”

“Fuck,” Mike says. “That’s terrible.”

Bird Boy takes a deep breath. “Yeah, well it’s not so bad compared to the shit they say about you. I’m sorry you have to hear all that.”

“It’s ok,” Mike says. “I’m used to it.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a drop of blood trailing from Bird Boy’s split lip to his chin. He hasn’t noticed it.

Mike reaches out and wipes it off of him with his thumb without thinking. Bird Boy tenses.

“Sorry,” Mike says, pulling his hand back. Embarrassing, what the hell is wrong with him?

“No, it’s ok,” Bird Boy says. “Thank you.”

Mike stands. “I should get going. I still have to drop off the meat at the shop.”

“Can I come with you?” Bird Boy asks suddenly, and Mike blinks. He hadn’t expected that.

Bird Boy flushes, and it looks like pink snow dusted across his cheeks. “Sorry. I was just - I don’t have to, if you don’t want me to.”

“No, you can!” Mike says, probably a little too loudly. “It’s fine.”

Bird Boy grins. “Oh, ok. Thanks.” He picks up his journal and binoculars, miraculously unscathed from the fight, and walks with Mike to his bicycle.

Mike suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know who this is. He knows Bird Boy’s habits, his friends, his hobbies, but he doesn’t know -

“Your name!” Mike yelps, and Bird Boy winces a little. “Sorry. But you never told me your name.”

“Oh,” Bird Boy says, turning a deep red shade. “I didn’t? Shit, I’m sorry, I guess I’m still distracted that I - well, I forgot. I’m Stanley. Stanley Uris.”

Mike offers a hand. Stanley shakes it. “Nice to meet you, Stan the Man.”

Stan smiles. “I like that name. It’s nice to meet you, too, Mike.”

Stanley Uris.

Stanley. Not Bird Boy. Stanley.

Stanley goes home after Mike drops off the meats, with a, “See you around.”

They don’t. See each other around. Something keeps them apart, like two magnets being forced together at the wrong poles.

But now Stanley waves to Mike in town, too. And Mike waves back, unable to stop himself from smiling as he does.

And he feels like, while something bigger is still on its way, something huge has just begun.

A friendship, of sorts. A connection, really.

And maybe it will get stronger.

Whatever happens, happens.

Spring is bad. Not as bad as summer turns out to be, but -

Spring isn’t usually so terrible. Mike’s always liked it. It’s not his favorite season (that would be fall, harvest season), but it’s fresh. A new start, Mom likes to say. The trees start to blossom again, the bees set to work, the pollen starts to fly. And even though it’s muggy, work around the farm in springtime is never too bad.

But it’s on one of these muggy days that Mike encounters the bird.

Mike gets back from running errands to find a note from his father on the kitchen counter. _No chores today, _it reads, _but don’t waste the day. Go down to the Ironworks and bring back a souvenir._

Mike’s not one to say no to his father.

He bikes back out onto the road, back into the humid May day, careful to watch for cars as he does, and sets out in the direction of the Kitchener Ironworks. He’s been there a few times, but not recently, and he knows his dad will be asking to see whatever he finds there.

Mike passes the road leading into town, and almost turns that way instead. Something is telling him that going to town might be better than going to the Ironworks, or the Barrens, or wherever. Maybe he could go down and look for Stanley and Bill and Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak, see if they want to hang out. Maybe, he could just find Stan, and they could go bird-watching together, or something.

Mike doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s scared of the Ironworks. It’s big, and empty, and abandoned, and it’s been left as a ruin ever since that explosion killed all those kids during the Easter egg hunt, and Mike has this terrible gut feeling that if he goes there today, he’s going to regret it.

But he goes anyway.

It’s just as creepy as Mike remembers. The place is quiet, and empty. There’s still bits of brick and steel machinery strewn about the field from the explosion. Mike sets his bike down, blood pounding in his ears. He’ll go in, he’ll grab some random lump of metal, and he’ll get out, and maybe, if he feels like it, and if he can get into town unnoticed by Bowers and his crew, he’ll go down to the drugstore and buy himself some candy.

There’s this big cellar door across the field from where Mike is standing. It’s made out of dented metal, and it’s got a chain with a padlock around it. It’s rusty, but it looks strong, and it would take a lot to break it.

Mike doesn’t want it to break. That ominous cellar door makes him feel uneasy.

He hops over the low fence surrounding the area, ignoring the historic plaque mounted into the ground there. The grass is long and unkempt, and it snickers over Mike’s legs, making his calves feel itchy even though he’s wearing jeans. He scans the ground, looking for something to take home, but nothing is catching his eye, not yet. He starts to think this awful thought that he’ll stumble upon a skull, the tiny and immature skull of a child, the skull of one of the children killed too young in the Ironworks explosion, when they’d just been trying to find some chocolate fucking Easter eggs.

Mike has this feeling, a bad feeling, and he wants it to stop. It’s the feeling that you get when you go downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water. You flick on all the lights on the way down so you can see where you’re going, so you can rid yourself of the darkness. You get your glass of water. But once you’re done, you’ve got to turn all those lights back off. And when you do, there’ll be no sunlight to take their place, no, just blackness, swallowing the light whole. And once you’ve flipped all the switches to off again, and you’re walking back upstairs, you feel like you’re not moving fast enough. You feel like some creature, some thing, some horrible, horrible IT is reaching for you from out of the night, claws outstretched, and it’ll get you if you don’t hurry. And you know that, rationally, nothing will happen. There’s no creature trying to grab you. But even though you know this, you still jump the last few steps, dash into your room, and shut the door briskly behind you. Because even though you know, you still _fear._

That’s what Mike is feeling right now. _Fear._

There’s something coming up the cellar stairs.

Mike can _hear _it, can hear the distant footfalls of something heavy, something _big_ emanating from the cellar’s depths, even from behind the door, growing louder as whatever it is gets closer. It draws nearer, growing steadily louder until the banging is all that Mike can hear, slamming a rhythmic tattoo into Mike’s brain.

Mike screws his eyes shut.

_This isn’t real. Just like the monster at the foot of the stairs, it’s not real, it’s not fucking real._

The noise stops. Mike slowly opens his eyes.

Everything is still.

And suddenly, something crashes against the inside of the cellar door.

Mike screams. He can’t control himself. Whatever is inside keeps throwing itself into the door, jostling the metal and straining against the chain and padlock, which had once looked sturdy but now looks as flimsy as a rubber band pulled taut, ready to snap.

Mike can’t move. He can’t fucking _move, _but he needs to, because whatever this thing is is _coming for him._

The chain breaks, the padlock is thrown across the grass, the doors fly open, and a giant bird squeezes itself out of the cellar. It’s too big to, it shouldn’t fit, but it does, and this bird is _huge, _with great talons and wings the length of pick-up trucks and a beak full of razor sharp teeth, and Mike isn’t sure what _kind _of bird it is, but he knows he’s scared of it.

The bird stops, and cocks its head at Mike questioningly, before opening its mouth and uttering a piercing, screeching call.

Mike finally gets his bearings.

And starts to run.

He can hear the bird giving chase behind him, wings beating as it lifts itself into the air, and_ This shouldn’t be fucking real,_ Mike thinks, as he scrambles up the grassy slope, _This is impossible._

But it’s real, alright, and it’s only getting closer.

Mike remembers his mother telling him a story. How, once, when Mike was just a baby, Mom had been hanging up the washing outside, and had left Mike unattended in his basket for a mere moment. A crow had swooped down and had started pecking at Mike’s face, and Mike had cried out, and his mother had yelled, and swatted the crow away with one of her nightgowns.

Mike has this idea that this giant bird is _that _bird, come back to get him, to eat him once and for all, even though this bird is not a crow, and is much bigger than that one must have been.

But, as Mike can feel the bird swooping down from above, can feel its claws gripping into his shoulders, and can feel, for one horrible moment, his Converse lifting off the ground, he realizes that he is wrong.

This bird isn’t that crow from so long ago.

This bird is Derry. This bird is Derry, and everything wrong with it.

Mike spasms in the air, and the bird drops him, sending him sprawling back to the ground. Mike whips around, prepared to fight the bird off with a rock he grabs from next to his head, or maybe with his feet, if he has to.

But the bird is gone.

Mike sits up, staring open-mouthed at the place where IT had been. There is blood seeping through his shirt, from the marks the talons left in his shoulders, but he doesn’t notice.

Because floating in the bird’s place, is a single red balloon with the words **I ♡ DERRY **on its side.

The balloon lingers. It bursts.

Mike takes a deep shuddering breath.

_Sorry, Dad, _he thinks. _Looks like I’m not bringing a souvenir home._

And then he hauls ass out of there as fast as his legs will carry him.

Mike tries not to think about the bird, he really does. But he finds the memory of it creeping up on him anyway, worming its way into his brain, uninvited and certainly not welcomed. He often wakes in the middle of the night, in those few months before things start to go down, sweating, paralyzed at the thought of the bird. Then he feels angry for remembering it, and tries to shove it out of his mind. It hadn’t really happened. And even if it did, it’s not going to happen again.

But part of Mike, the quieter part of Mike, the part that Mike doesn’t usually like to listen to, tells him that that isn’t true.

And that part of him is right.

Things finally start to kick in once summer hits. Summer’s not Mike’s favorite. There’s lots of work to be done, and it’s hot, and because everyone is off school, when Mike goes into town, there’s more of a chance he’ll run into Bowers.

Of course, there’s also more of a chance he’ll run into Stanley. Mike likes that better. And he does see Stanley in town, but they still don’t progress past the little waves and the awkward smiles.

Something’s going to happen soon. Mike knows it.

The day it does is brutally hot. It’s June, and even though it’s Maine, the temperatures are not forgiving. Mike’s taking his usual trip to the butcher’s when Bowers gets him.

Mike’s wheeling his bike down the sidewalk, craning his neck slightly just in case he can catch a glance of Stan or Bill or one of the others, but there seems to be no such luck.

He’s just about to turn his bicycle onto Main Street when he sees it.

A bright red balloon is staring him down from the trees lining Bassey Park.

_Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh G -_

Mike blinks. The balloon disappears.

A trick of the light, that’s all. That’s all it was.

A familiar blue car roars in front of him before he can think about it any more. In his shock and fear of the balloon (that he _hadn’t _seen), Mike had made the foolish mistake of stopping, and now the predator has pounced on its prey.

“Well, hey there, Midnight.” Henry Bowers grins from the passenger seat of Belch’s car.

“Having a good summer?” he asks menacingly.

Mike blinks, and then bolts, hitching himself onto his bike and pedaling as fast as he can in the opposite direction. He hears the car’s engine growl from behind him, keeping close pursuit. But Belch never drives right next to Mike, even though he could. He stays just behind Mike, fucking with him, playing with his food like a cat plays with a mouse, and Mike can hear the others laughing cruelly, viciously.

Mike keeps going, finally skids to a stop near the Barrens, because he knows he won’t be able to make it home, miles away. He flings his bike to the ground without a second thought, and skitters through the thick undergrowth down to the stream, hoping to shake them off.

He’s just splashing into the creek’s waters when he hears a shout. Behind him, Bowers, Belch, and Victor Criss have burst out of the bushes, grinning maniacally. Criss is holding a brown paper package, and Mike realizes they’ve taken the meat out of his bicycle’s delivery basket. He stands staring at them, unable to move, unsure of what to do.

“Give me that,” Bowers says, swiping the package from Criss. “Hold him down.”

Criss and Belch immediately start to advance, and Mike only has a moment to realize, fleetingly, that Patrick Hockstetter is not with them (of course he isn’t, there’s missing posters of him all over town), before they shove him to a flat rock jutting out of the stream.

Bowers tears open the paper and slaps the raw pork onto the rock’s surface. “Come on,” he says, eyes glinting. “Let’s make the fucker _eat _it.”

Criss and Belch laugh meanly, and begin to push Mike’s face down towards the meat. It smells awful, and Mike knows it’s going to be cold as hell on his face, and squishy too.

_Mr. Judd won’t like this, _he thinks wildly, and then his face is being smashed into the meat.

They pull him back up. Mike gags, and they howl with laughter, then shove him back down again.

“_Come on!” _Bowers is shrieking. “_Eat it, you shitheel! Eat the fucking meat, you jerkoff!”_

“_Eat it, eat it, eat it,” _Belch and Criss start to chant, and Mike knows that they’re serious. They’re not going to let him go until he takes a bite, and Mike is _not _taking a bite.

It’s when they’re pulling him up a fourth, fifth, who-fuckin-knows-what-number time, that Mike sees the clown.

It’s staring at him from the bushes, and Mike knows only he can see it. It has orange hair, and big yellow eyes, and a mouth that’s painted red, painted red with circus paint or blood, Mike can’t tell, because the clown is nibbling the fingers off of a detached arm. A _human _arm.

IT grins at Mike, and waves at him with the mangled body part.

Mike knows, somehow, that that must be the bird.

What else would it be?

Then he’s being pushed down again, and when he looks back up, the clown has vanished.

“_If you don’t do it, I swear to God I’ll carve you up like wood! I’ll make fucking chocolate shavings out of you!” _Bowers screams, and Mike knows he isn’t fucking around because he’s _seen _Henry’s knife, and it’s _sharp. _Mike is suddenly terrified that Bowers is really going to pull it out of his pocket and cut him up right there.

A rock strikes Bowers across the face, shutting him up immediately.

The four of them look over to the other side of the creek in sync. Standing there is Bill, Eddie, Richie, Stanley, a big boy Mike doesn’t recognize, and a red-headed girl who he does, though he doesn't know her name. This girl appears to be the rock-thrower, because her arm is outstretched, and she’s got a determined look on her face.

Bowers mutters a curse under his breath. “What the fuck do you losers want? Can’t ya see we’re _busy?”_

“Leave him alone,” the girl says. Behind her, the others immediately scramble to pick up more rocks. Criss and Belch have released Mike, and are standing almost at attention, unsure of what to do. In their distraction, Mike darts across the stream, slips, and crawls onto the bank. Two pairs of hands pull him up. Richie and Stanley. Mike doesn’t have the time to thank them.

“Why?” Bowers asks, grinning. “Because you want him all to yourself? Come _on_, Beaverly, can’t you wait? Or are you really that much of a _slut?”_

The big boy yells then, snatches up a rock and throws it at Bowers. It hits him on the top of the skull.

Beverly throws another rock, too.

“ROCK WAR!” Richie shouts, and suddenly they’re all throwing rocks. The air is full of them, flying in different directions. At first, Mike ducks, tries to right himself without getting hit, but then Stanley hands him some of his rocks, and Mike is pelting them along side him.

When the bullies finally leave, Mike hangs back, just for a moment. The others start to head for their bikes, groaning and wiping blood off of themselves, but happy and joking all the same. Mike will go with them, but he feels compelled to do something first. He trudges back into the water.

“Mike?” Stan asks, and Mike feels giddy that he’d waited for him. “What are you doing?”

“Just getting something,” Mike answers. He kneels (wincing slightly because of a particularly nasty hit from Belch on the left shin) and picks up the rock the girl had thrown. It’s slightly pointed at the top. Covered in Henry Bowers’s blood. Mike holds it up to the light.

“Keep it,” Stan says, a little in awe of it, just like Mike is, and Mike pockets it and joins his new friends.

Because, he supposes, that’s what they are. Friends. There are some things you can’t experience together without becoming that. Standing up to bullies by hitting them with rocks is one of them.

The big boy’s name is Ben. The girl is, of course, Beverly Marsh. And Mike had already known everyone else.

But now he _really _knows them. And despite the bullying, despite Bowers, despite the bird and the balloons and the _clown, _Mike feels like that big thing he’s been waiting for has finally happened.

And he couldn’t be happier.

Having friends is all Mike has ever wanted. And it’s great.

Bill is nice, and he always sticks up for Mike when they run into trouble. He races Mike on his bike, Silver, and even comes by Mike’s house instead of waiting for him to come to them.

Richie’s funny, even though his impressions are shit. He makes Mike laugh, though, and he lets him borrow some of his comics while they’re down in the clubhouse.

Ben builds them the clubhouse. Mike thinks that’s so cool. The clubhouse is amazing, and Ben always blushes and says it’s no big deal, but it _is._

Eddie can freak out about things, but he’ll buy Mike candy if Mike’s low on pocket money. He also makes Mike a friendship bracelet, and that’s just the cutest thing ever. Mike feels like he’s going to cry when Eddie gives it to him.

Bev is amazing. She’s spunky, and hilarious, and caring, and Mike wishes he could be more like her. When he tells her so, Bev tells Mike she wishes she could be more like _him._

And Stan...well.

Stan’s great.

He sits with Mike and figures out how to rearrange the clubhouse with him. He lets Mike walk him home after dark. He smiles at Mike, and Mike forgets how to breathe.

He’s sweet. He’s funny, in a subtle way. His eyes are bright, his motions routine, his words carefully selected. His curls lie, gleaming in the sun, against his face.

He asks Mike to go birdwatching with him, and listens, concern in his eyes, when Mike tells Stan why he can’t do that.

Because Stanley understands. They all do. They’ve all seen the clown, too.

And the rational part of Mike’s brain is starting to fade more and more.

That bird isn’t going away. Neither is Ben’s mummy. Neither is Eddie’s leper.

Neither is Pennywise.

IT won’t leave them alone. Why can’t IT just leave them alone? They didn’t do anything to IT.

But IT did something to those missing kids.

And Mike knows they can’t forget that.

But even with Pennywise haunting them all in every waking moment, the Losers Club still find time to just be kids.

There’s this moment where they’re at the Aladdin, walking out of a late night showing of _Back to the Future. _Ben’s pointing out how, technically, time travel wouldn’t work like that _if_ it did work at all, and Richie’s telling him that it doesn’t matter anyway, when Eddie yells out,

“Photo-booth! Come on!,” and pulls Richie by the arm into the small metal box, leaving the other Losers to follow behind them. Mike squishes himself right in the middle, and Bill gets in last, drawing the curtain, and Ben is putting in a quarter before anyone else can, and then the camera is flashing, and they’re all pulling funny faces, and Mike feels a hand slip into his own, and he realizes it’s Stanley’s, and then they’re all shuffling out to see the results.

“We look good,” Bev states, smiling.

“Yeah,” Bill says. “T-Too bad they only give you one photo st-st-strip.”

“Should we rock-paper-scissors for who’s going to take it?” Ben suggests, and what follows is an epic seven-way game in which Richie is eliminated first and Mike emerges the winner.

“Unfair,” Richie grumbles. “I demand a rematch!”

“Beep-beep, Trashmouth,” Eddie tells him, but Mike doesn’t miss the fondness in his tone.

“Are you sure, guys?” Mike asks. “Rich, you can have it if you want it. It’s ok.”

Richie’s face changes to something friendly, something almost soft. “Don’t worry about it, Micycle, you keep it. You won fair and square.”

“Really?” Mike asks, smiling. Bev scoffs.

“Come _on, _stop being so damn polite. Take the fuckin’ photos.”

“Yeah, Mikey,” Stan says. “It’s yours. Something to remember us all by.”

And Mike feels such a strong wave of affection for his friends that, for a moment, he feels as if he might faint.

“Thanks, you guys,” he says, and they all crowd around him for a group hug, and Mike never wants this to end.

Never, never, never.

But of course, it does. Because good things don’t stick around, what goes up must come down, and Mike might be doomed to never have something nice actually last in his life.

It’s Stan who proposes it. Stan who says, “Swear it.” Stan who leaves scars on everyone’s palms.

And Mike does it. God help him, he swears it.

Ben seems to believe that IT really is gone, that they won’t have to come back. Mike meets Beverly’s eyes from across the circle in a silent agreement.

_We will have to. We know this. IT knows this._

Mike wishes that weren’t true.

“I gotta go,” Stan says, and Mike wants to leave with him.

“Me too,” Bev says, a regretful look on her face. “Not now, but...my aunt...and I have to go.”

“Will this be the last time we see you?” Eddie asks. Bev smiles softly, sadly, but softly.

“I think so,” she answers. “Maybe not forever. Maybe just for now.”

“We love you, Bev,” Mike tells her, standing up and brushing his pants off, because he’s got chores to do back at the farm and work to attend to.

“Don’t forget that,” Mike says.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bev says back, but even then Mike knows it’s a lie. “You call me when you get to Florida, ok, Mikey?”

“Sure,” Mike says, smiling.

But he knows he isn’t going to Florida. At least, not for a very long time.

He’s going to stay here, even when no one else does.

_I’m going to stay here, _Mike thinks, as he mounts his bicycle and starts to pedal away from the field. _Because I have to._

_I’m going to stay here, _he thinks, zipping past Bassey Park with Stan, the bandages still covering Stan’s face. _Because no one else will._

_I’m going to stay here, _he knows, waving goodbye and turning to ride up to his house, ignoring the pit in the stomach that’s telling him that the Losers Club has been disbanded. _Because I’m _supposed _to. I’m supposed to._

But he doesn’t want to.

Mike gets home, puts his bike up. Finishes his chores, sweeps the hayloft, feeds the chickens, waters the garden. Makes sure the bolt gun is still on its hook, and he doesn’t want to admit to himself that the sight of it hanging there comforts him.

He sits down to dinner, to one of his peanut butter and onion sandwiches that his mother abhors so much. Gets himself a glass of milk, but finds it’s the only thing his stomach can muster to take in.

“Mike,” he can hear his dad asking, as if from far away. “You ok, son?”

He’s been asking that a lot lately.

“Yeah,” Mike hears himself saying. It sounds like he’s speaking underwater. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“You’ve been _tired _a lot recently,” Mom says. “You go into town a lot more often than you used to. Is something going on? Something we should know about?”

Mike is suddenly very alert. He could tell them. Could tell them everything. He almost wants to. His mouth even opens slightly, trying to form words.

But he can’t do it. Why? Because they wouldn’t believe him.

“No,” Mike says. “Nothing’s going on. Just made some new friends, that’s all.”

Mom blinks in surprise. “Friends? But you’ve _got _friends, Mike. Timothy, Jackson, Randy. Are these new friends pressuring you into doing things you don’t want to do?”

“I can have other friends, Ma,” Mike says, and somehow, he feels angry. “And they’re not pressuring me into anything.”

“Son,” Daddy says. “We just want to make sure everything’s alright with you. That your new _friends _aren’t the ones that have been making you act so distant lately.”

Mike glares. “They’re _not,_” Mike snaps, and he never snaps at his parents. “Why can’t you just leave them alone? They’re not doing anything _wrong. _Or do you want them to be? So that you can tell me not to hang out with them?”

Mike regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth.

“Mike...,” Mom starts. Daddy’s eyes are steely.

“Michael,” he says carefully. “Apologize for lashing out, or go to bed.”

But Mike finds that he just can’t stop.

He stands up, pushing back his chair. “_Fine,_” he hisses. “_Good night._”

And he marches upstairs without looking back.

Mike collapses onto the bed. He curls himself up in a ball, and he puts his face in his hands.

And he cries for a long, long time.

He feels sad. He feels scared. He feels like he’s doing everything wrong. He feels like IT is never going to leave him alone, not ever, and he’ll be stuck in Derry for the rest of his life.

Most of all, he feels heartbroken.

Mike feels heartbroken, because something is telling him that today has been the last day the Losers will ever truly be together as a group.

And that thought _terrifies _him.

Bev leaves first. She leaves a few days after they make the oath, and Richie, who had seen her last, tells them that she had promised to call when she gets to her aunt’s place in Portland.

She doesn’t call. They all sit, crowded around Richie’s telephone, waiting for it to ring, but it never does.

“Maybe she’s just t-t-tired,” Bill says, but his voice seems to be full of false hope. “She’s b-been driving and moving in all d-d-day. She probably just f-forgot.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “She forgot. She’ll call tomorrow.”

But he only believes half of it. And the next day, when Bev doesn’t call, and the next week, when Bev doesn’t call, Mike knows that what he’d thought to himself before has come true.

Bev has forgotten them.

Bev has forgotten them, and it wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t on accident, either. Somehow, Mike knows that she’d forgotten without even knowing that’s what she’d done.

He doesn’t know if everyone else understands this, and he doesn’t mention it, though why not, he isn’t sure.

And even though they’d only been truly united for one summer, the Losers Club feels incomplete without Beverly.

Six months after Bev leaves, Mike wakes up in the middle of the night to find that he can’t remember her last name. The short bout of amnesia lasts only for a second, but it’s enough for Mike to realize that something is wrong.

_Marsh, _he thinks. _Her last name is Marsh. How could I forget that?_

And even though he still remembers things about Beverly quite clearly, there seems to be some sort of haze passing over Mike’s memories. Not enough to send him into hysterics, but enough to scare him, and Mike understands that IT is messing with his head, too.

He grabs a notebook and calmly scribbles down everything he knows about Bev. Her name, her hair color, what she wants to be when she grows up, her father’s name, where she had lived before. Mike does this calmly because he’s afraid if he loses his cool, he’ll forget everything.

And then, when they’re all fifteen, Bill moves, too.

Mike had known this was coming, but it’s painful all the same. Especially because he knows Bill won’t remember them, and he would bet money that Bill knows it too. They all do.

The rest of the Losers go to Bill’s house the morning of his departure, for one last hurrah. But it’s empty, and sorrowful, and no one enjoys it.

Why would they?

The last thing Bill says to Mike before he walks from the porch to his car Mike remembers very well.

“I’m sorry,” Bill says, voice hoarse. “St-Stay brave, Mikey.”

And then he’s gone.

And now it feels worse than before, because Bill leaving means their leader is gone, and that’s terrible. It’s like, if the Losers were an animal, or a robot, like Voltron or a Transformer, Bill would be their head.

Which means the Losers have just been decapitated.

As they all move through high school, they find it harder to stick together. When a group is missing two members, it can be difficult to move as one.

  
  
And Bill doesn’t call, either, just like they all knew he wouldn’t.

At this point, Mike stops giving himself false hope.

Or, at least, he tries to, because at the end of freshman year, Stan announces, eyes brimming with tears, that he’s moving to New York.

And Mike sort of feels like he’s been running on a treadmill, and while Bev and Bill were him losing his balance, Stan is the one that is finally making him trip up and lose his footing.

Because _Stan..._Stan _can’t _leave.

“Look at Stanny-boy,” Richie says humorlessly. “Livin’ it up in the big city.”

“Beep-beep,” Stan says, but his eyes peer at Richie sorrowfully.

None of the Losers who leave Derry _want _to leave. They want to leave the town, sure, and the bullies, of course (even though Bowers is at Juniper Hill, and at least Mike can be finally free from him), and the dissipating memories of IT, _obviously, _but do they want to leave their friends? No, and Mike thinks it’s unfair that they should have to.

And Stan is different, anyhow. Mike’s relationship with Stan isn’t the same as his relationship with Ben, or with Eddie, or Richie. It’s...well. It’s...

It’s something.

They all hang out at Richie’s the night before Stan leaves, but it’s a sad event, and not much fun is had. They all know that he’s leaving. That he won’t remember them. Just like they knew with Bill.

They don’t know that it will be the last time they see him alive. How could they?

Mike walks Stan home, even though the farm is in the other direction. But just as they’re about to turn onto his street, Stan says:

“Come with me to the quarry.”

Mike does.

He’s been down to the quarry at night before, but not as often as during the day. It can be sort of creepy in the dark, but when you’re with other people, it’s not so bad. It’s calm, and quiet, and Mike can see why Stan wanted to come here.

Stan sits on the edge of the cliff, dangling his legs over the side. Mike joins him.

“I’m moving,” Stan says.

“I know,” Mike says back.

“I’m sorry,” Stan sighs.

“It’s ok,” Mike tells him, and then they’re quiet, just watching the moon reflect off of the lake’s surface and the water lapping at the banks.

At some point, Mike moves his hand over to cover Stan’s. Stan jumps a little, but doesn’t pull back. Just lets Mike draw circles on his palm with his fingertips.

Mike feels like he’s going to cry. He doesn’t, but he feels like he will.

He remembers the day he’d first really met Stan, when Stan had gotten his ass kicked by Bowers and his friends.

He remembers how angry he’d felt watching them do it.

How happy he’d been when Stan had introduced himself.

“I used to call you Bird Boy,” Mike says, breaking the silence. Stan glances up at him, surprised.

“What?”

“That’s what I used to call you, before I got to know you,” Mike says. “Before I learned your name.”

Stan blinks. “Had you seen me bird-watching before?”

“Yeah. I knew you liked doing that. I also knew you were Jewish, because I’d seen you coming out of the synagogue before.” Mike flushes a little. “Hope that doesn’t make it sound like I was stalking you, or anything. I just noticed.”

“No,” Stan says softly. “I understand.” He shifts slightly, but doesn’t move his hand away.

“Too bad we never got to bird-watch together before I moved. I know why you can’t, though.”

“I would have done it,” Mike says back. “I would’ve done it today if you’d asked me. I would’ve done anything you asked.”

“I wish we had.”

“Me too.”

Stan exhales. “Mike...” He buries his face into Mike’s shoulder.

Mike can’t tell if he’s crying or not.

They bike back to the main streets of Derry in silence. They say goodbye. They go their separate ways.

Words unspoken, words unsaid, but maybe they were never meant to be.

Stan leaves.

And he doesn’t call; Mike tries not to be too upset about it, because he already knew this would happen.

Eddie moves next. Richie takes it the hardest. Mike knew that he would.

And then there were three, but not for very long, because then Ben’s leaving, and that feels like a punch to the gut.

And then it’s just Richie and Mike.

They don’t even hang out that much. It’s barely junior year, and Richie hangs with a lot of kids at school who smoke under the bleachers just like him. Mike stays at work on the farm, shares some beers with Jackson or Timothy if the chance comes up. When he has free time, he hardly spends it with Richie, instead opting to read more of his history books.

A seven-person group with only two members left is very sad, very sad indeed. There isn’t much motivating Mike and Richie to hang out together anymore, and when they do, it’s empty, because of how much they’re missing.

Mike knows Richie is still fucking waiting for a call from Eddie that will never come. Hell, he might still be waiting for news from Bev, even after all these years.

When Richie tells Mike he’s moving to California for college, Mike isn’t even surprised.

“Good luck, Rich,” Mike tells him on Richie’s last morning in Derry. “Try not to tear up the town.”

“No promises,” Richie responds, pulling Mike into a hug that’s the most comforting thing Mike has felt in a while. “But when I make it big, I’ll write you into one of my bits, or I’ll sign your ass, or something.”

“I look forward to it,” Mike jokes, but he doesn’t laugh, and neither does Richie, which just feels _wrong._

And then Mike is all alone, with no one else.

Back to square one, he supposes.

His notebook is full of random snippets of knowledge of his friends, just so he won’t forget.

_Eddie - Didn’t have asthma, but used an inhaler anyway. Maybe he doesn’t need it anymore. Brown hair, brown eyes. Scared-looking kid._

_Ben - Built a dam once, in the Barrens. I wasn’t there, but I heard it was great. Blonde hair. Big._

_Bill - Had a younger brother, who died. He died...because of IT, and I remember IT, because I have to. Sort of reddish-brownish hair, and he stuttered._

_Richie - Did this one Voice, the Foghorn Leghorn one, and even if it was shit, it was probably the funniest one. Glasses and black hair._

_Bev - She wanted to design clothes. I hope she is. Red hair like fire. It was short._

_Stan - Birds. So many birds. Why did I never go bird-watching with him? I should have. Stan had blonde hair, dirty blonde, but he wasn’t dirty. His hair was curly. It was pretty._

And Mike keeps the strip from the photo album as a trophy, using it to mark his place in all the books he reads. And he still has the rock that Bev had thrown, now brown with Henry Bowers's blood. They're tokens, of sorts.

Reminders.

Now that Mike’s on his own, things are different. It’s not like how it was before, when he stayed at home and occasionally caught a glimpse of his soon-to-be best friends in town. Now, he really only goes into town for deliveries, and he feels sad because there’s no one there to look out for.

There’s one thing that has kept up, though, one thing that’s the same as it once was.

Mike’s apprehensive. Something’s coming. The feeling is dimmer this time, duller, as if from many miles away, but it’s there.

Mike knows he will have to call his friends when it’s time to, and he really doesn’t fucking want to do that.

He has nightmares, too. Horrible ones, ones that shake him to his very core, but he can never seem to remember what they’re about. There are a lot of things he can’t remember anymore, things that have faded away in his memory. He remembers his friends okay, not everything about them, but about as much as he has in his notebook. And he doesn’t always remember what happened that summer. He remembers what they’d done, but not how they’d done it, and what had happened in between.

He remembers the shapes of the other Losers. He takes out the strip of photos from the booth and stares at it. Sometimes, he goes to the library and looks at old yearbooks, just to see his former friends’s school pictures. He remembers them well enough to do that.

Most of all, he remembers IT.

And that’s not what Mike wants to think about, not at all.

Mike is nineteen and his parents have this idea that he’s going to go to college out of state, or at the very least, out of town. Mike smiles, tight-lipped, and agrees with them, but secretly, he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t think so.

And then Daddy gets sick.

And Mike isn’t going anywhere.

_Jeezum, Mr. Gray, that’s a pretty cruel way to ensure that I’ll stay._

Daddy’s got lung cancer, and it’s eating him up. Mike stays at home, takes over the farm with his mother in Daddy’s absence, visits Daddy in the hospital as often as he can.

“Sorry it had to be this way, Mikey,” Daddy wheezes one night. “You would’ve done well in college.”

“I think I would’ve stayed back here, anyway,” Mike replies, and deep down, he knows it’s true.

“Michael, if you’re staying in Derry, you should at least try to find a girl,” Mom tells him. “I’d like to have grandbabies some day. Even if your father - “ she breaks off. “Even if your father won’t see them,” she finishes quietly.

“Mom,” Mike says gently, and for some reason he’s thinking of Stan Uris. “I don’t think I could have kids even if I tried.”

His mother looks at him, and he can see that she understands, somehow.

“It’s you,” his mother whispers, and he can see real fear in Jessica Hanlon’s eyes now. “There’s something _in _you, Mikey, or...or maybe it’s just this town.”

Mike nods. “I think so, Mom. I think so.”

She never asks about grandkids again. Mike doesn’t bring it up.

He wonders if any of the others have this problem. They’re still young, not old enough to have kids, and hardly old enough to be married, but maybe they have an idea. Maybe they _know _they want children. He wonders, do they think they’ll be able to do it, or is something making them doubt it?

Because Mike isn’t doubtful, he’s _knowledgeable. _He _knows _that he won’t be able to carry on the Hanlon name, and somehow he knows the others will have the same problem.

Somehow, he knows. He knows.

He reads more history. Plunges himself back into the library (even though Mrs. Starrett has retired by now), checks out every book he hasn’t already read, rereads the ones he has. This time, however, it’s only the books on Derry. He doesn’t need to know about the French Revolution, or the Antebellum period of the United States. He needs to know about _Derry._

The history stays constant with that old pattern Mike and Ben Hanscom had discovered years ago. Twenty-seven years between each hugely terrible event in Derry, twenty-seven years for IT to hibernate before it crawls back out again. The missing kids and the general shittiness of the town stick around all the time, but the big stuff, like the Black Spot Fire, is timed.

Mike had already known about the Black Spot from reading about it, but when his dad finally tells him about it, it’s even worse than Mike had imagined.

It’s on one of Daddy’s last nights alive, and as the words fall from his dry and cracked lips, Mike feels shivers running up his spine. Shivers he hasn’t felt in years.

“Why, Daddy?” Mike hears himself whisper, though he already knows the answer, and it’s killing him. “Why did the bird hover?”

“It didn’t hover,” Daddy croaks, and Mike feels cold. He knows what Daddy’s going to say, and he doesn’t want to hear it, he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want.

“It didn’t hover. It floated. It floated. There were big bunches of balloons tied to each wing, and it floated.”

Mike’s father goes to sleep.

Mike leaves the hospital feeling chillier inside than he has in a long time.

The bird. His dad had seen the bird, at the fire at the Black Spot. Mike had almost forgotten about the bird, somehow he’d almost forgotten.

How could he have?

Maybe he wanted to.

Daddy passes. Mike manages the funeral, and it’s a quiet affair. They bury him in the Derry Public Cemetery, even though Mike thinks Daddy deserves better than that.

The night after his dad is buried, some kids come in with spray paint and vandalize the headstone with some pretty bad language. Mike pays to have it cleaned.

God, he hates this town.

Mike keeps running the farm. Makes enough profit to get by. Hires hands during harvest season to help, fixes leaky faucets in the farm house, goes grocery shopping when Mom gets too tired and shaky to go out.

By the time she dies, when Mike is thirty-three, Mom doesn’t even remember who Mike is.

Memory loves to fuck with Mike that way.

And now Mike, for the first time in his life, is truly alone. There really is no one else for him, except Mr. Judd’s daughter, Lisa, running the butcher shop (Mr. Judd having long since died) and Gerry, who drives the veggie truck. Even Randy and Timothy and Jackson are gone. Jackson and Randy have sons to run the farms now, and so have moved on to sunnier places. Timothy was killed in a freak snow plow incident a few years back.

Mike gets to thinking he should sell the farm. The land is too big for just one person to live on, all by himself.

So he does sell the farm, and then he moves to a house a block away from the Derry Public Library, and then he gets a job there as the librarian.

It’s not bad. Not bad at all. Life goes on. Mike has nightmares, but he lets himself forget them. Derry is still an awful town, but at least Mike has a steady job doing something he enjoys.

He keeps tabs on all of his friends, whether they know it or not. Bill becomes a horror novelist, marries Audra Phillips, the actress, moves to England. They’ve got a few of his books in the library. Mike picks up one called _The Black Rapids _and finds he is genuinely too frightened to finish it. Something about the plot hits too close to home. And when Mike finds out that Bill’s first published work, a short story sent to a magazine, is called _The Boy In the Yellow Slicker, _he can’t even bring himself to read a summary of it. He already knows what it’s about.

Richie’s a comedian in LA. Not a very good one, but he’s fairly popular. Mike watches some of his bits and gets this feeling that the jokes aren’t coming straight from the heart. Richie Tozier used to make Mike laugh hard enough to cry. This new stuff can only produce a few chuckles, or _chucks_, as Richie would say.

Ben lives in Nebraska, and he's an architect, because what else would he have been? He’s great, Mike knows, he’s seen the photos on Google. People are still debating over the BBC communications tower, and if it’s good or not. And he’d seen the clubhouse, when they were kids. He hasn’t gone back there, even though he knows he could. Something tells him he should wait on that.

Ben is single, Mike notices. So is Richie. Mike thinks they’re both holding out for someone, though they couldn't know who that someone is.

Beverly isn’t single. She’s married to Tom Rogan, as in Rogan & Marsh Industries, the fashion giant of Chicago. Mike can’t afford any of their products, not on a librarian’s salary, but the stuff looks too fancy for him, anyway. In all of the press photos with her husband, Beverly’s smiling for the cameras. But Mike knows Bev. He knows those aren’t real smiles, that she’s hurting behind them. He wishes he could help her, but Mike wishes a lot of things.

The last two were the hardest to keep track of, as they didn’t get famous, but Mike’s pinned them down fine. Eddie’s living in NYC, married to the former Myra Palmer, and he’s a risk-analyst, which Mike thinks makes a lot of sense. Other than that, he doesn’t know much. It’s not like the guy has a Wikipedia page about him.

And Stanley, Stan moved to Atlanta, to work as an accountant. Mike knows he’s married to a woman named Patricia (and this fact tugs at something deep inside of Mike). And that’s about it.

Mike hopes he’s doing alright.

He hopes they’re _all _doing alright.

He misses them so much.

Mike knows his time is running out. If whatever is going to happen is going to happen, Mike’s only got two years until it does.

He reads about a practice, a certain Ritual of Chüd. He studies it relentlessly, drinks in as much information as he can on the subject.

He thinks it could work.

And then it’s 2016, and where did all this time go? Mike feels like just yesterday he was still fourteen years old. Now he’s -

He’s picking up the phone. Because Adrian Mellon, Lisa Albrecht, they’re dead, and Mike knows why.

He knows exactly why.

And he’s been dreading this moment for twenty-seven years.

_“Hello?”_

_“Bill Denbrough?”_

_“Uh, yeah. Only my friends call me Bill, though. Who is this?”_

_“It’s Mike. From Derry.”_

_“...Jesus.”_

_“You need to come home, Billy. Thing are happening, and you have to come home.”_

_“I’m - _shit - _I’m working on a movie right now, Mikey. I, I can’t just - “_

_“You have to.”_

_“But Mike...I...”_

_“We need you. _I _need you. You’re the leader. Without you, we can’t...”_

_“...Ok.”_

_“Ok?”_

_“Ok, I’ll come. I know we swore. I’ll come.”_

_“Thanks, man.”_

_“No p-p-problem, Mikey.”_

**. . .**

_“Hello? Who’s this?”_

_“Eddie, it’s me. Mike.”_

_“Mike...”_

_“From Derry.”_

_“Derry...right...”_

_“Eddie? You still there?”_

_“Yeah, I - _holy shit!_”_

_“Eddie! Are you ok?!”_

_“Yeah, yeah I’m pretty good! I think...”_

_“Did you just crash your car?”_

_“Uh. Yeah.”_

_“Fuck. Look, just. Come home, Eds. You need to come home.”_

_“...Ok. Ok, I will.”_

_“Ok. Thanks, Eddie.”_

**. . .**

_“Hey, what’s up?”_

_“Richie?”_

_“Uh, yeah, that’s me. Hey, listen, if you’re a groupie, I’m doing autographs after the show. I don’t know how you got this number, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call it again. It really puts a damper on the ol - “_

_“Richie.”_

_“...Yeah?”_

_“It’s Mike Hanlon. From Derry.”_

_“Mike...?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Shit.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“...Are the others coming back, too?”_

_  
“I’m calling them all. We made an oath. We can’t break it.”_

_“Yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll, uh - I’ll be there, Micycle.”_

_“Thanks, man.”_

_“Yeah, I, uh - oh shit - I gotta go.”_

_“Bye, Rich.”_

**. . .**

_“Uh, this is Ben Hanscom, who’s calling?”_

_“Ben, it’s Mike Hanlon.”_

_“...Excuse me, it’s, uh, it’s who?”_

_“From Derry.”_

_“...”_

_“Ben?”_

_“Holy fuck.”_

_“Yeah, I know. Listen, you remember the promise we made, right?”_

_“Y-Yeah...”_

_“Ok. Can you come?”_

_“Yeah, for sure, I...yes.”_

_“Good. B - “_

_“Bev!”_

_“What?”_

_“Will Beverly be there?”_

_“I hope so.”_

_“Alright. Bye, Mike.”_

_“Bye, Ben.”_

**. . .**

_“Stanley Uris speaking.”_

_“Stan? It’s Mike.”_

_“Mike...?”_

_“Hanlon. From Derry. Remember Derry?”  
_

_“...Mike! God, yes, of course. Sorry, I didn’t - I didn’t, uh...How - How long has it been?”_

_“A long time.”_

_“Twenty-five years?”_

_“Twenty-seven.”_

_“...Twenty-seven years...”_

_“Listen, um. You need to come back, Stan.”_

_“...It’s happening again, isn’t it? IT. IT’s back.”_

_“...We made an oath. We have to stop IT. How soon can you be here?”_

_“Well, I - I would have to - have to do a few things, but - “_

_“Good. You can come?”_

_“...Are the others coming? Do you know?”_

_“I think so. And you?”_

_“I...I...”_

_“You ok?”_

_“...Yes, I’m fine, I - I’ll, um. I’ll...I’ll see what I can do.”_

_“Ok. See you soon, Stan the Man.”_

_“Right...right...bye-bye, Mikey.”_

_“Bye.”_

**. . .**

_“Hi? Who is this?”_

_“Beverly Marsh?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“I’m Mike. Calling from Derry.”_

_“Mike - Mike Hanlon?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Oh my God...Mike...I’m sorry I completely forgot about you.”_

_“I know. The others did, too.”_

_“The...The others.”_

_“Yes, the others. Eddie, Richie, Ben, Stan, Bill.”_

_“Bill.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“You want me to come back.”_

_“You promised, Bev. You have to.”_

_“I know, I just - _God,_ that was such a long time ago.”_

_“It was. Will you come?”_

_“Of course I’ll come, Mike. I have to.”_

_“Ok. Thanks, Beverly.”_

_“Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll come. Bye.”_

_“Goodbye.”_

**. . .**

IT is gone.

They’ve gotten rid of it. Permanently, this time.

So why does Mike feel so empty?

Well, that should be an easy question to answer.

It’s because Eddie and Stanley are gone, too.

And it’s all Mike’s fault.

In the quarry, Richie sobs, and Mike comforts him. Covers Richie’s body with his own, feels how he trembles beneath him.

It’s heart-wrenching.

And Mike knows it’s because of him.

Should he say something? Tell Richie so? Tell them all?

No. They already know, don’t they?

But he tells Bill, anyway. He’s always been able to tell Bill anything. 

“No, Mikey,” Bill says, stutterless once again, sitting next to Mike on the floor of Bill’s hotel room (Audra is in Bev’s room, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Bev has since moved in with Ben.). “Don’t say that. It’s not your fault.”

“Don’t lie, Bill,” Mike weeps. “Please don’t lie. This is all because of me, all of it. I stayed behind, I never forgot, I called you all, I made Stanley kill himself, I made Eddie come back just so he could get impaled, and I - “

Bill hugs him. Rubs his back soothingly and shushes him gently.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, Mike. It’s ok. ‘S’not your fault. ‘S’not.”

“_It is my - “_

“No, it’s _not,_” Bill says, almost forcefully. “You know whose fault it is? It’s IT’s fault, Mike, IT’s fault, and IT’s dead. IT’s dead, we killed it for real this time, and IT, Pennywise, Bob fucking Gray, _whatever you want to call it,_ is not. Coming. Back.”

“But I brought them back,” Mike says weakly. “I brought you all back.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Bill says simply. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

“Yeah,” Mike says, and _fuck, _he’s just so _tired. _“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Bill loosens his hold a little, but doesn’t let go. Mike’s glad he doesn’t.

A beat. And then,

“Do you think Richie hates me?” Mike cringes as soon as the words fall out of his mouth.

“No. I don’t think Richie could ever hate you.”

“But...Eddie...”

“Wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill him, you didn’t stab him through the - “

Bill chokes off, swallowing, eyes red, and Mike remembers that Eddie had been Bill’s first friend.

“Hey,” Mike says softly. “Hey, it’s ok.” And now it’s his turn to cradle Bill.

“He was - he was my best friend,” Bill sobs. “He was. You all were. But he - he was the first.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Bill sniffs. “Me too. And, God, and _Stanley..._”

A tear runs down Mike’s cheek then, and then another, and then another.

“I think I always had a little crush on him,” Mike says, freeing a hand to wipe his face with. “When we were younger.”

“Yeah?” Bill asks, looking up at him. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s ok,” Mike says. “I didn’t, either.”

Bill hums, and sits himself up. “I should - I should probably go check on Audra.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Bill leaves.

They all do. Bill with Audra. Bev with Ben. Richie, Richie on his own.

Just like they all did when they were kids. But this time, they don’t forget.

Mike packs up his stuff. He quits his job as the librarian, lets Carole Danner take over, or find someone who can. He trashes all that stuff about Derry, about Pennywise, about the Ritual of Chüd. He doesn’t need it anymore.

He’s going for a fresh start.

But before he leaves, he gets a letter. A letter from Stanley Uris.

They all get one. Mike supposes Eddie’s must go to a grieving and highly confused Myra Kaspbrak.

And in that letter is everything. Everything Mike has ever wanted, really.

It’s an explanation. It’s an apology. It’s even a love letter, from Stan to the rest of the Losers.

To Mike.

Mike keeps the letter in his notebook, pressed between the pages. It never loses the smell of Stan, the smell that he’d had even as a child.

Mike’s headed for Florida. Maybe on the way he should stop by Atlanta. Check in on Patricia Uris, because God knows she deserves that much.

_Yeah, _Mike thinks, staring at the strip of photos that had been taken lifetimes ago. _That’s what I’ll do._

He drives away, and Mike Hanlon finally gets to leave Derry.

Mike Hanlon finally gets to go somewhere with sun.

**Author's Note:**

> i am a mike hanlon lovebot. he is underrated. love him.


End file.
